Did Mick Jagger Write an Unpublished Memoir?

Mick Jagger's personal recounting of his life at the Rolling Stones' peak was reportedly written years ago – but the band's management team has apparently blocked any efforts at publication. In fact, they have declined to either confirm or deny that a memoir by Jagger even exists.

John Blake, a London-based publisher who wrote the book Up and Down With the Rolling Stones, claims to have a copy of a 75,000-word autobiography that traces the Stones singer's life up to around 1980. “It’s extraordinary,” Blake told The New York Times. “I compared it to, like, the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Blake, in a separate piece for Britain's Spectator magazine, mused on the worth of such a book, even when balanced against the million-pound advance Jagger reportedly received. Blake said he received the unpublished manuscript from a "mutual friend," with additional notes written in the margins by Jagger himself, about three years ago.

But there's nothing he can do with it, since Jagger owns the copyright for any such manuscript. To that end, Blake said he's reached out to Jagger via Rolling Stones manager Joyce Smyth, but has gotten nowhere.

“John Blake writes to me from time to time seeking permission to publish this manuscript,” Smyth responded in a statement sent by her law firm. “The answer is always the same: He cannot, because it isn’t his and he accepts this. Readers will be able to form a view as regards the matters to which John Blake refers when Sir Mick’s autobiography appears, should he choose to write it.”

Jagger's book would follow Keith Richards' Life, which arrived in 2010. Jagger has consistently said he has no current interest in writing a memoir, however, telling fans "they can look it up on Wikipedia" in a 2014 talk with the Hollywood Reporter.

Blake said the manuscript doesn't focus on the Rolling Stones' legendary debauchery, but instead reveals Jagger in a more complex light. He thinks this may be the reason why publication was halted, but added that it takes nothing away from the memoir's lasting insights. “It is delicious, heady stuff,” Blake told the Spectator. “Like reading Elvis Presley’s diaries from the days before he grew fat and washed-up in Vegas.”